My Step Daughter's Wedding

My stepdaughter’s wedding yesterday was magnificent and what was remarkable to me beyond the magnitude of the celebration was the exacting attention to detail my middle stepdaughter paid to the affair. The elements of her dexterity are too numerous to mention but nonetheless, I will try. The cocktail hour had a selection of food that only several restaurants could claim as their cuisine. Every meat, fish and vegetable you could imagine cooked, sauteed and served with flair and perfection. The staff navigated in and out of the flotilla of guests like they had sensitive radar on their serving trays. 

The entrance to the reception hall was handled with superb orchestration and the music, food and guests were so convivial, it was indeed the best wedding I have ever attended bar none. Her new nieces and nephews stole the show in so many ways. They danced for nearly six hours, were precocious and their performance galvanized the whole ensemble and made the merger of the two families seem like melted butter on toast.  

These will be lasting memories on my hard drive and I am delighted that I was part of her life these past 12 years. Great love and success K & H.  

Wedding of the Century? Yes, in many ways it indeed was. 

The Mantle

Ten weeks flashed by and I guess I am feeling rather numb more than anything else. I really want to get back to what I hoped I had learned here from my own writing.  My wish is that I have made a difference in  five people’s lives. My three stepchildren, my wife and my daughter in law. I think that my behavior has seen the full range from critical acclaim to elements of disdain.  I have tried harder more than I was lax, but the mantle of stepdad is something I must take up again because my blended family needs me right here, right now and for the near distant future I am committed to seeing my middle step daughter have a wonderful wedding and for my son and his lovely bride, employment and a nest of their own so they can populate the next generation. 

The Arrival

Is just a few short days away. Back from China the immigrants will come. What did I accomplish in the ten weeks they were away?  I can’t say that being alone was the best thing I enjoyed. I think it was the fact that I lost the feeling of resentment and the obligation of carrying the financial burden of my blended family. I certainly missed the authentic Chinese cooking and I also  know that my wife misses her daughter in law. They worked pretty seamlessly while she was away courtesy of the internet.  

The wedding of my middle step is close at hand and the year passed like time lapse photography. Her brother and sister in law are arriving less than 48 hours before the big event and it leaves little time for any last minute attire adjustments or God forbid the plane from half way cross the world gets delayed somehow. 

I will be sure to re visit my relationship with my son and his wife and maybe I learned something about patience and tolerance, which is an ongoing practice that can never reach perfection. 

Are You In Or Are You Out?

As an adult when staying with my father at his home in Florida, he wanted to know when I was coming home. At 40 years old, I was slightly indignant. I’m a grown man not your child anymore. What I forgot was that I was his son and as long as I was under his roof he felt he had the right to know if I was going to be staying out all night or coming back home to the house. Not an invasion of my privacy or even being parental. The thought carries forward with adult step children.  As long as they live with you, don’t be afraid to ask them to tell you what their plans are.  You needn’t ask them details of their night out but just have them tell you if they’ll be home late or not. There’s nothing more foreboding when someone is missing from their bed and you weren’t told they would be somewhere else. 

When Silence Isn't Golden

As I get my priorities in focus, the things I thought were more important become painful reminders that my life is not about what I do, but who needs me. The only measure of success is who will miss me if I were gone. If the answer is in muted silence, then all the accolades in the world will not awaken the lightest sleeper. 

The Quiet Man

The quiet is maybe too quiet. As much as I had looked forward to being alone, it seems to have a hollow feeling. I got used to being angry and now that I am feeling nothing I am sorry that I have not taken a more concerted approach to what I want, and that  disturbs me.  

Wedding of the Century

Well, maybe not the century but one that will mark a point in my wife’s life that will be cherished and talked about for the rest of her natural born days. I have told my middle step daughter that based on the preparation she has put into her nuptials it should last a week. A few hours will never do the justice it deserves because every detail has been programmed in by her with exacting detail as her antithetical fiance watches in baleful amusement. She has witnessed no less than 10 of her friends get married, and enrolled   in various stages of planning for their weddings as well, so she certainly has the acumen for her own version of tying the knot. I have kidded her that she probably has her nanny already picked out even before conception.  

She has been kind to include me as “one of her dads” and asked me to speak from the church lectern, either the homily or a reading from scripture. It will make me proud because Heather has taught me the most about being a step dad and for that I will be eternally grateful. 

 I had better get to the Men’s Wearhouse to take my measurements as I have put it off long enough thinking I might lose another pound or two based on the ridiculous regimen of Spin I put myself through.  


P.S.
I did and found that I had lost 3 inches off my waist. And step daughter, the other dad's have not found their way to the fitting room. 

Plan B

This place I find myself in as a step dad,  has left me feeling that I have no active emotion. Because I have no ongoing conflict with the living arrangements of my stepson and his wife while they are away, the troubling aspect of it is that I am lacking the formulation of a plan that makes sense for all of us when they come back. It is rather distressing that the source of my irritation is based in resentment and not coming from a place of loving kindness.  While I have the time to let my irritability subside I could be developing with my wife a set of rules and timeline for him when he gets back.  The fact that I am not doing that leads me to believe I am just being slothful or it might be that my wife cannot even entertain such an idea because it is already solved in her mind.  

My Boundaries

How do I tend my appropriate boundaries?  When you give up your boundaries or never knew where or what they are, I am at a loss as to where my responsibilities begin and where they end.  Too often I thought I needed to attend to everything, not because I was seeking control but because I viewed my role to be the savior, and that I was simply compelled to do whatever I could even if it was out of the realm or reasonableness. Sheer knowledge in this case is powerlessness.